


preying on angels

by theredhoodie



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 06:55:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2419280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredhoodie/pseuds/theredhoodie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She pushed back an almost sheer curtain and let out a small gasp. Richie was there, propped up against one of the thick columns holding up the ceiling. He had blood on his shirt, more than she remembered him having. His skin was pale in the flickering torchlight and as she stepped closer, she could see a tear in the fabric of his shirt. She wondered if it was the mark of a bullet and she knelt down next to him, her knees welcoming the stability of the stone floor. She lifted a slightly shaking hand. She was going to check if he was dead, because she needed to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	preying on angels

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little thing that I came up with, brainstorming headcanons, as per usual. A little "what if" snippet.
> 
> ps. as usual, edited by myself, quickly, so any mistakes, hopefully won't sway you from enjoying this too much.
> 
> pps. thanks to Ace for the title and inspiration!

Kate was utterly lost. She wasn't deep in the tunnels now, or so she thought. Maybe she was actually close to getting out of here. Somehow, she was on her own, having lost her father, the professor, the ranger and Seth. But if she stayed anywhere long enough she feared having another of those visions and her heart was still aching from the first.

She ran her hands along slimy, damp walls, until they grew dry and she could see better with torches on the walls. The corridor came to an abrupt end, depositing her within some sort of room that looked like a tomb. There were normal things mixed in with the ancient walls and carvings. A bathtub, a vanity, clothes and hair brushes…Kate walked farther in, trying to keep every joint still and steady, even though her entire body wanted to shake and break down. She pushed back an almost sheer curtain and let out a small gasp.

Richie was there, propped up against one of the thick columns holding up the ceiling. He had blood on his shirt, more than she remembered him having. His skin was pale in the flickering torchlight and as she stepped closer, she could see a tear in the fabric of his shirt. She wondered if it was the mark of a bullet and she knelt down next to him, her knees welcoming the stability of the stone floor. She lifted a slightly shaking hand. She was going to check if he was dead, because she needed to know. As much trauma he had put her through, he had still been kind to her.

When the pads of her fingers were a breadth away from his skin, he gasped awake. She yanked back her hand and gave a small yelp, falling back on her butt and staring at him as he came to life right before her eyes. He gasped and gaped like he couldn't take any air in, blinked widely and winced, his hand going to that bloody spot on his shirt.

"Richie?" she said softly, staying put no matter how much her brain screamed at her to move and get away from him.

Her small voice called to him and he breathed hard, readjusting to the new feeling of such an action. Everything was blurry behind his glasses, the cracks in the lens pulling all of his focus. He lifted his hands and pulled them off, slipping them into the pocket of his jacket. The motion felt alien, like his hands weren't quite his own.

"Richie? Are you okay?" Kate asked again, inching back a little.

He furrowed his eyebrows and let out a breath, gripping the wall behind him and pulling himself to his feet. He towered over her so she also scrambled to her feet. She could see that this room had more things in it. A leather chair, a lounge couch, another vanity and more clothes on crude metal hooks. Kate glanced around and then back at Richie. He was looking at her very intently. His eyesight was clearer, but still blurry, the torches on the walls messing with his vision. Santanico's story ran through his mind in jagged pieces and he squeezed his eyes shut for an elongated amount of time as he tried to piece himself back together.

Kate took a step back. Every part of her was telling her to run, but she couldn't.

There was a gnawing in his stomach that hurt more than bleeding out. He sucked in a breath through gritted teeth and set his eyes on the figure he could just barely make out. Fuzzy edged, small figure, his ears swam and he could smell nothing but the blood gushing through their veins. Some innate thing in his mind told him that he needed blood, that it would solve all of his problems. The pain would stop.

He pushed himself away from the wall and opened his mouth, fangs retracting from the roof of his mouth like they'd always been there. The rushing blood moved faster and he could smell it and hear it, it consumed every one of his senses.

Kate's heartbeat picked up and she was going to run, but he was too fast. She saw the fangs and figured out the rest. But before she could do anything about it, he was in front of her, one hand gripping her shoulder, the other pulling her head back. "Richie," she said, over and over, her body shaking even more than before. "Richie, plea—ahhh!" she gave a gasp as his fangs pierced her neck. She dug her fingers into his back just to keep from falling, though he was holding her tightly. Her world swam as his burst before his eyes. The second her blood touched the back of his throat, it was like he was reborn, there were fucking fireworks under his skin.

He didn't know that blood could taste like more than coppery liquid. It tasted like sunlight and flowers and strength, there wasn't even a word he could use to describe the very life that he could taste.

And then he stopped, his mind growing clearer. He snapped his head back and the fangs disappeared. "Kate?" His voice sounded different, or maybe it was just his ears that were perceiving sound differently. He had only bit her for seconds at most, though it felt like his world had stopped. But this was Kate. "Kate…oh my God." His vice grip softened and he stopped back, moving his hand from her hair to her chin, tilting her head up. He couldn't tell if she was paler than usual because she was mostly covered in blood and the lighting was flickering with shadows. His eyes were still catching up with the rest of him, especially as he started to realize exactly what he had done, what had been done  _to_  him, and he started fighting it.

"Richie, what did you do?" Kate whispered, lifting a shaky hand again, this time pressing it against her own throat. The puncture holes were small, and rimmed with smaller holes from the other sharp teeth born out of the transformation.

"Kate…" he breathed out her name and let go of her. She swayed in place and he stumbled back, sinking back against the very column he had been propped up against when she first found him. Kate somehow stayed on her feet, standing taller than him.

"What did you do?" she said, voice a little stronger. She refused to fall, refused to faint or accept weakness. She had to get out of here. She still had to find Scott.

Richie squinted up at her, glasses in his pocket, shirt bloody, limbs loose around him. He had no strength to move, the horrors of the past few days flashing through his mind. Specifically the last day, but this had started long before today, before he broke Seth out of during that prison transfer. His head fell back against the stone and he looked up at Kate as she came into focus. She was such a small figure, but she stood taller than he ever would, the light from the torch nearby glinting off of the small cross around her neck, her skin mostly covered in blood. It was like she was some avenging angel, stopping to give clarity and solace to a dying sinner.

"I'm so sorry," he said. She could tell he wasn't lying. He had never lied to her, why would he start now? Even though her world tended to jerk around every few minutes like she was falling and catching herself, she could see the emotions etched across his face, the pain and conflict and guilt, and she couldn't help but feel the need to help him. "I didn't mean to do that, I don't know what I was thinking."

"It's okay," Kate found herself saying. She didn't know if it was. She didn't know if she would turn into one of those things, one of the things that he was now. But right now, all she could focus on was him and the way he kept searching her shadowed face for some form of answer to everything that had been happening to him.

"You don't know what's been going on," he said, shaking his head. "She made me do…" He frowned, brows furrowing as the images came back. The feeling of his knife sinking into Monica's flesh, her abdomen seeping with blood, her streams muffled until she passed out. And then he  _cut her eyes out_. "She made me kill that bank teller and she made me enjoy it."

"Richie, what're you talking about?" Kate whispered out. She was so close to falling to her knees.

"She wanted me to kill your brother and your dad…" his eyes found hers again in the darkness. "I would have done it too…oh my God." He whispered the last part, aghast with horror at his own actions. He was a criminal, a thief, he wasn't a murderer, not like that.

Kate shook her head, letting her body fall to the floor as gracefully as she could manage. She pulled her hand away from her neck. It was sticky, but she wasn't bleeding nearly as much as she thought she would.

"I didn't mean to attack you," he finished, finding her face in more light now that she was at his level. "I couldn't think. I'm sorry."

Kate couldn't help but reach out a hand, dirty and covered in dried blood, and slip it over one of his, resting against his leg. "Richie," she started, unable to leave him, not when he was obviously repulsed by the things he had been forced to do in the past. "It's this place, and that woman, they're evil. You're not like them." She squeezed her fingers with as much strength as she could muster, which wasn't much.

"I don't know. I'm turning into one of them," Richie said, clenching his jaw and looking at her tired face. She was younger than him by a great deal, but that didn't stop her from talking more sense than he ever could. "I am one of them. I would have died if I didn't—"

"I leave for one minute, and look what little pest finds its way here." Santanico was back from wherever she had slunk off to. She missed Richie's awakening, and she was now sporting a long silk robe, though it wasn't tied so it barely counted as clothing.

At the sight of her and the jealousy and ferocity of her voice, Richie was on his feet and pulling Kate along with him. Kate gripped onto his arm, her energy levels spiking once again as the adrenaline came rushing back. Richie placed himself between the two of them.

Santanico's dark eyes flickered from Kate to Richie. "You fed on her," she stated, pride in her voice. Richie narrowed his eyes at her and she laughed dryly. "I'm surprised she's still alive. You have a lot of self control. That's just what I need."

"Kate," Richie said, his eyes never leaving Santanico's. He would never forgive himself if he allowed the culebra before him to harm the angelic soul that refused to run even after he attacked her. "You need to run."

Kate watched Santanico, still wrapping her head around the fact that the beautiful woman in front of her turned into such a monster. And it was that monster who turned Richie into one of those things and it was her fault that he had killed and done horrible things. "No," she said fiercely, pushing herself forward so she was a step in front of Richie. "I'm not leaving you with her."

Santanico's lips curled into a smirk. "Oh my, what spirit. Tell me you turned her, too?" She turned her dark eyes to Richie.

Richie didn't match her smirk. "No. Kate," he growled, "I swear to God, if you don't leave—"

"I am  _not_  leaving you," Kate repeated. She couldn't let Richie go that quickly. She knew, deep down inside, that the second she left, he was going to lose whatever was good within him. And she didn't want to see that part of Richie gone. "I won't."

"How sweet, you have a white knight, Richie," Santanico said, walking forward a step. Kate didn't move, but Richie moved forward, his back making contact with Kate. Kate lifted her arm and pressed her knuckles back against his chest, as if to tell him to stay. "I usually don't eat leftovers…"

Richie moved quickly, putting his arm in front of Kate and pushing her back. She resisted, but he was stronger even before she had blood loss and he had superhuman strength, but even as she pushed back, she fisted her hand in his shirt.

"I'm no one's leftovers, bitch," Kate spat at Santanico before Richie pushed her fully behind him and he turned, leaving his back to Santanico. He reached up and grabbed Kate's hand with his own, folding his fingers around hers and holding on for a lingering moment.

"Leave," Richie said firmly, letting go of her hand. It fell away and Richie could feel a piece of him, a human piece, falling away as it did.

"No way," Kate said in defiance, shaking her head. "Richie—"

He grabbed her shoulders hard and shook her a little rougher than necessary. "Don't you get it? I'm gone, I'm a fucking lost cause. Just  _go_ , before I bite you again. And this time I won't hold back," he threatened, his voice low and even. It chilled her to the bone.

Richie released her shoulders and she stepped back. She couldn't see Santanico, but Kate expected her to pop out and attack her. Richie's threat rang through her mind. There was another tunnel leaving the room behind her, around the column Richie had used as support more than once in the past hour.

"I don't believe you," Kate said, shaking her head even as tears prickled along the bottom of her eyes. She pressed her lips together and backed away.

Behind him, Santanico had other plans. She wasn't going to let such a free meal slip away, especially one that had infiltrated her personal space. So she moved to attack, but Richie was expecting it. Even though she was over five hundred years old, and he was still learning the tricks of his new power, he was still able to catch her by the throat and lift her off of the ground. His face changed, scales rippling over his skin, fangs retracting. She smirked and gripped his wrist with her hands. "I bet she tasted…heavenly," she said, flickering her eyes to Kate, still hovering in the background, heart hammering in her chest. "Didn't she?"

Richie didn't move. He kept his eyes on Santanico. "Kate, leave, now. You don't want to see this," he said, in that same threatening tone as before, even as his words shifted to ones of comfort and concern.

Kate swallowed. She didn't want to be here. She wanted to be as far away from here as possible, even if it meant leaving Richie. She turned and moved toward the exit, stopping only to give one final glance at the pair before disappearing in the darkness. She ignored the echoes that followed her as she moved deeper back into the temple.


End file.
